Littering or Laziness?

A curious thing happened in Morrison on Thursday, January 10, 2008.

Sauk Valley telephone books were being delivered to homes and businesses throughout the city, we know because the delivery service brought us 6 copies into our offices here on Main Street. Elsewhere in town it was a quite different story.

The delivery service placed the books, wrapped in an open ended plastic wrapper not in people's mailboxes, not on porches, nor offered to hand them thru the front door, no they were simply thrown out of the van or car onto the front lawns. Now let's just analyze this a little before jumping to conclusions.

Is it possible that maybe only a few of the books were thrown out on lawns this way? I suppose it is possible the delivery service ran late and just tossed a few out to get the job done. Not a good way to advertise a telephone book service but if only a few then maybe nobody would really notice or care. On Thursday I noticed several in our neighborhood on the ground. On Monday, January 14, 2008, 4 days after the deliveries I took a quick drive around the South side of Morrison and counted 33 telephone books still on the ground in front of homes. I did not go anywhere else to determine the extent of the incident on the North, East or West side. So I contacted a few people in these areas and yes, they were seeing the phone books outside as well on the ground. So much for running late. Apparently the delivery method for Morrison, Illinois was to drive by, throw and say good bye.

Laziness might be too easy a term to describe this distribution method. Littering comes to mind first since I suspect not one citizen was out on their front lawn asking for the paper material to be deposited on their lawn. No, the telephone book company made a business decision to have their books thrown into everyone's lawn, without the homeowner's permission. It is quite one thing to receive unwanted mail in our mailboxes where it comes in with the regular mail and we can decide to throw it away if we wish. No, the telephone book company made a business decision to deliver these books, saving postage, (did they ask permission from our City Hall as a solicitor?) and has promptly made a poor example of themselves for keeping Morrison litter free.

The national weather forecasters are predicting several inches of snow over the next few days and we can only imagine what wonderful reading those books will be offering after they become wet with snow. Of course we can always hope the forecasters are incorrect, giving homeowners who are away, time to return and pick up their copies. Apparently, the telephone book company has taken the copyrighted phrase, "Let your fingers do the walking" to new levels and allowed their fingers to throw the book at you when they should have been letting their feet do the walking and deliver the books to your doors and mailboxes as a good corporate business should do.

We recommend leaving the telephone book on your front lawn until garbage day and simply pick it up and place it in your recyclable bin at curb edge. Now that is being responsible as a citizen and keeping our community litter free.

(by Bob Vaughn, Guest Columnist)